The Jilted Heiress' Return to the High Life - Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

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“What?”

His voice remained steady as steel.

“Thank you for accepting my apology and giving me a chance to make it right.”

They arrived at the nearest hospital, where Corrine insisted on walking despite her injuries. Nate matched her halting pace with patience until they reached their destination.

Upon her return from treatment, she found him on the phone, his tall frame cutting a striking silhouette against the stark hospital walls. At her approach, he ended the conversation and extended a business card.

“Here’s my contact information. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.”

“I don’t need anything else.” Her polite refusal carried finality—this chapter needed no epilogue.

She extended his jacket toward him.

“Here. I’ll cover the cost of cleaning it.”

Nate’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smile as he glanced at the jacket in her outstretched hand.

“Keep it. You need it more than I do.”

His words, simple as they were, struck a chord she hadn’t expected. A lump rose in her throat as she struggled to suppress the sudden wave of emotion. She told herself it was the day’s events—the shock, the exhaustion, and the heartbreak. Surely that was why she felt so moved by a stranger’s fleeting kindness.

“Thank you. But I should go now,” Corrine said softly, her voice tinged with vulnerability. Straightening her posture, she walked away, determined to return to the Ashton family home and handle some important matters.

Nate remained rooted in place, watching her retreating form with an inscrutable gleam in his eyes.

“We’ll meet again.”

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Corrine stepped through the doorway of what was once her shared sanctuary with Bruce. The emptiness of the room echoed her solitude—she alone would occupy these walls tonight.

Her gaze settled on the heart-shaped balloons adorning the walls, their cheerful shapes now a mockery of her pain. Without ceremony, she tore them down, their synthetic surfaces crinkling beneath her fingers. The room’s festive decorations only amplified her growing frustration. Methodically, she dismantled every celebratory touch until she found their photograph hanging on the wall.

She stood motionless before the captured moment of false happiness, watching as her pain crystallized into something harder, colder. The scissors moved through the photograph with quiet certainty, severing their smiling faces into irreparable pieces.

After erasing every trace of their shared past, Corrine sank into the sofa’s embrace. Time stretched endlessly as darkness crept across the sky, her vigil unbroken from dusk until dawn. Just as drowsiness began to cloud her senses, the door’s opening shattered the silence.

This time, no eager footsteps carried her to greet him. She remained still, a statue carved from disappointment and resolve.

Bruce entered with the confidence of the guiltless, dropping onto the nearest seat and massaging his temples with weariness.

“Get me a glass of water.”

A bitter laugh escaped Corrine’s lips.

“Bruce, we’re done!” Her words rang with the finality of a judge’s gavel.

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